About building 21

Inspired by Building 20 at MIT, B21 provides a hub for creative scholars and staff to network with like-minded talents from across our campuses, and freely explore ideas and projects they may otherwise not have. This is a place where students, faculty and staff can re-experience, re-model, re-build, and re-invent the entire edifice of higher education.

From quantum physics to student affairs; from neuroscience to student politics; from philosophy to immersive realities; from the microcosm to the campus, B21 is a space where one can explore, play with, manipulate, bend, break, probe, and recreate the multi-faceted aspects, dimensions, and experiences of ideas, knowledge, thinking, self-development, and education.

This is a place where students, faculty and staff can re-experience, re-model, re-build, and re-invent the entire edifice of higher education.

B21 is not an accelerator nor a research center; it will not seek research funding and it will not give credits. Projects do not need to produce results to be considered a success, and experimentation for the sake of experimentation is more than welcomed. B21 is a sandbox, a theatre studio, a playground, and a renaissance ‘atelier.’

The Vision

Building 21 is an experiment in new, innovative, and beautiful ways to approach the university experience—an open lab where curious minds from all levels and disciplines are invited to come together to collaborate, to think, and to dream outside the traditional confines of their areas of study and expertise.

In Building 21, one explores, seeks and pursues unconventional ideas, and develops unique and beautiful systems, processes, and methods of understanding. Building 21 is a place where creativity is encouraged, beauty and chaos are celebrated and frontiers are meant to be ignored.

The Space

B21 is located in the former Warden's apartment in Royal Victoria College, at 651 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal. When the space was vacated in 2016, the Office of Student Life and Learning teamed up with Student Housing and Hospitality Services to transform it into something entirely different--both from what it once was, and from anything else the University had seen before.

Now, B21 is a place where 21st century ideas come to life in a Victorian setting. Plush sofas and intricate moldings juxtapose modular, movable work surfaces and high-tech gear. We're not done yet though--the space is ever-evolving, and will be continuously molded by the needs and interests of its participants.